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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24131455">Coming Out Is Not The Hardest Part</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattahj/pseuds/kattahj'>kattahj</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Scenes from a New Ham New Fam [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Society (TV 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Backstory, Canon Disabled Character, Conversations, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Sam Eliot &amp; Becca Gelb (mentioned)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 16:54:02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,500</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24131455</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattahj/pseuds/kattahj</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a lot for Grizz and Sam to think about, both in terms of the current situation and their own relationship. Grizz worries. Sam tries not to, and shares some tidbits from his past to connect with Grizz in the present.<br/>(This work is part of a series, but can be read as a standalone fic.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Sam Eliot/Gareth "Grizz" Visser</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Scenes from a New Ham New Fam [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1722175</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>55</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Coming Out Is Not The Hardest Part</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Thanks to Phantom_traveler and ShotOfPatron for the beta!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Grizz fell silent and leaned back on the sofa, resting his head against Sam’s arm. He was bone-tired, trying to sort out the mess that the town had become, and talking it through with Sam had brought him no closer to a solution.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry,” he said, doing the sign as well. “I didn’t mean to just rehash this bullshit all over again.”</p>
<p>“It’s okay,” Sam said softly. “I wish I could help out more, but… I need to be there for Eden. I can’t risk it.”</p>
<p>Risk. Because now it was a <em>risk</em>, going against the Guard, and how the fuck did things end up this bad?</p>
<p>“No, I get it. I wouldn’t expect you to get involved, you’ve got a good reason not to. It’s like dependency discharge.”</p>
<p>Sam frowned. “What?”</p>
<p>“Oh. Uh…” Grizz was catching more and more of the things Sam signed along as he spoke, but trying to finger spell long words himself was still a slow and arduous affair. “Dependency… discharge. When they let you out of the military because you have to help your family.”</p>
<p>“Right.”</p>
<p>The existence of that family was still enough to fill the room with awkward silence for a moment. Grizz deliberately broke it and plunged in.</p>
<p>“So, how is Eden?”</p>
<p>“Good.” Sam smiled. In spite of everything, seeing him so happy about his little baby girl was still heartwarming.</p>
<p>“Has she learned any new tricks?”</p>
<p>“She’s a baby, not a dog! And she’s too little. All she does is eat, poop, and cry. And sleep. She’s the cutest when she sleeps.”</p>
<p>“I bet,” Grizz said, returning the smile.</p>
<p>Sam’s gaze got even steadier than usual, and he drew a deep breath. “I told Becca I was seeing someone. I didn’t say who, but I could, if you want.”</p>
<p>“Oh. What… what did she say?”</p>
<p>“It’s fine. She understands.”</p>
<p>“Really?” Grizz signed that, and Sam repeated the gesture.</p>
<p>“Really.”</p>
<p>There was a knowing quality to Sam’s smirk that Grizz didn’t quite grasp the meaning of, but the good news was pretty clear. “Well, good! Then I guess we could, I don’t know, tell her together? That’d be less weird than you telling her and me just showing up later, wouldn’t it? Or would it be more weird?”</p>
<p>Sam pondered the question. “Together’s best, I think. If you’re ready to come out?”</p>
<p>Coming out. Right. This would be a coming out, even though the gay part was substantially less nerve-wrecking than the ‘I’m dating your baby daddy’ part.</p>
<p>“I think so. Yeah. I pretty much already came out to Gwen anyway.”</p>
<p>“Gwen?” Sam frowned. “Why Gwen?”</p>
<p>“Honestly? She was making a pass at me, and I just blurted it out.”</p>
<p>“How did she take it?”</p>
<p>Maybe telling the truth was unfair to Gwen, but it had been an awkward enough experience that Grizz kind of wanted to share it with someone. “She asked if I was gay through and through, and put my hand on her breast to make sure.”</p>
<p>Sam’s mouth opened, and he looked scandalized. “Do I have to duel Gwen?”</p>
<p>“Duel?” That was a hell of a mental image. Grizz laughed and patted Sam’s thigh. “No. She got the message, eventually. It was fine.”</p>
<p>“Well, congratulations then. Your first coming out.”</p>
<p>“Wouldn’t my first coming out be you?”</p>
<p>“Point,” Sam acknowledged. “Your first coming out to a straight person.”</p>
<p>“Yeah. Could have been worse, I guess.” Coming out to his parents would have been a <em>lot</em> worse. Or his friends on the football team - which he supposed that he still had to do, though it had taken a rather low priority on the list of things he wanted to tell them.</p>
<p>“It’s funny,” he said. “I thought coming out was a one-time thing. You do it, and then it’s done. You’re out. But it’s not like that, is it? I’m going to have to do this hundreds of times.</p>
<p>Sam wrapped his arm tighter around Grizz. “Maybe less. People gossip.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, okay. But a whole bunch of times. Unless I have some sort of, I don’t know, public announcement. Which seems like a little overkill.”</p>
<p>“Put a poster up outside the church,” Sam suggested with a grin. “Or bring a megaphone to the cafeteria.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, yeah. Very funny.” Grizz gave him a light kiss, just because that grin was too damned cute. “How did you do it? Come out?”</p>
<p>Instantly, Sam grew serious. “I was never really in. I’ve had crushes on boys since I was little. Mom and Dad ignored it, until I hit puberty and they couldn’t anymore. Of course,” he acknowledged with a tilt of his head, “by then, Campbell was also old enough to notice, and he…” Sam mimicked a missile finding its target and exploding.</p>
<p>“He gave you a hard time?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. It was horrible. Being in love, and having it dragged through the dirt like it was shameful. Then Mom sat me down. She said I was her son, and she’d always love me, no matter what. But she also told me about AIDS, and gay bashing, and discrimination.”</p>
<p>Sam’s voice was down to a barely audible whisper, but Grizz got the gist of it, and these were words he didn’t want repeated anyway. The whole thing was really fucking close to something his own mom could have said - and she was the tolerant one of the family. He wanted to hug Sam hard, take his hands, kiss the tears away from his eyes - but all of that would effectively have muffled the story, and so instead he just patted Sam’s thigh, in slow strokes like he was soothing a spooked horse.</p>
<p>“She said that things were already going to be harder for me, and so I needed to think about what I really wanted. In a way, it was worse than Campbell. Because she wrapped it in love. Does that make sense?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Grizz said. He couldn’t quite find his voice, but then, that didn’t matter. “I get it. What about your dad?”</p>
<p>“Nothing.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean, nothing? He never talked to you about it? All these years?”</p>
<p>Sam shook his head.</p>
<p>“What, did you two just never talk to each other?”</p>
<p>“We talked. But not about feelings. Dad gets… uncomfortable, and then makes jokes.” Sam acknowledged with a wry smile, “I know, that’s where I get it.”</p>
<p>“Runs in the family, huh? So none of them supported you?” He didn’t know why that would be so surprising. Maybe because Sam had always seemed so comfortable with being gay. Then again, that was only in comparison to himself.</p>
<p>“I had Becca.”</p>
<p>“Becca. Right.” The constant, loyal friend. Grizz supposed that if you had a friend like that, it wasn’t so strange if at some point you ended up in bed. God knew he’d slept with girls for a lot less. But that thought sent him on a new track. “What about the boy? The one you were in love with? Who was he?”</p>
<p>“His name was Adrian.” Sam first did a sign for the whole name, an A shape moving by the chest, almost like the sign for happy, but then he fingerspelled the whole thing. “He was older. Sort of a deaf mentor to me.”</p>
<p>“Oh, he was deaf too?” Of course there would have been other deaf people in town, back then, and it only made sense for Sam to have known some of them. There was certainly no reason to feel jealous or inadequate about that fact <em>now</em>. But still, Grizz couldn’t help it.</p>
<p>“Yeah. It was a program, of sorts. Older kids helping the younger, being role models. I did it too, before they kicked me out.”</p>
<p>“They kicked you out?” The thought of Sam being rowdy enough to get kicked out of anything was laughable. “Why?”</p>
<p>“Some of the parents didn’t like a gay teen hanging around their kids.”</p>
<p>Grizz had heard that kind of sentiment before, and it had always felt like a cold steel glove squeezing his chest, but it was rare enough that he’d forgotten. “Fuck.”</p>
<p>“Yeah.” Sam watched him intently. “You’ll get some shit like that, you know. Less, probably, now that the adults are gone. But some.”</p>
<p>“I know.” He leaned in for a second to kiss Sam’s cheek, as a reminder of why this was worth every obstacle thrown in their way. Pulling back, he said, “But we can handle that, right?”</p>
<p>“Yeah.”</p>
<p>“So what happened to him? Adrian?”</p>
<p>“He went to college. I cried. I moved on, to other doomed crushes.”</p>
<p>“College? Wait, how old were you again?”</p>
<p>“Twelve. Thirteen, by then.”</p>
<p>Grizz laughed. “Yeah, that was <em>never</em> going to happen.”</p>
<p>“I know,” Sam signed, laughing too. Speaking, he went on, “I knew even then. It didn’t matter.”</p>
<p>“Did he know you had a crush on him?”</p>
<p>“He must have. I was super obvious.” Sam mimed himself pining with love for the older boy. “But he never said anything. He was good to me. Helpful. Like a big brother.” He made a grimace. “A better big brother.”</p>
<p>“I’m glad you had someone like that,” Grizz said, and he meant it. Belated jealousy aside, little Sam had deserved people in his corner. Maybe having that was what had made him strong enough to serve as a beacon to sexually repressed Grizz Visser, years later.</p>
<p>Sam smiled, and gave Grizz’s shoulder a little nudge. “Your turn.”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“Who was your first big crush?”</p>
<p>“Uh, no,” Grizz said. “I plead the fifth on that one.”</p>
<p>“Not fair. I told you mine.”</p>
<p>“It’s not the same! I don’t even know yours! Anyway, he seems to have been a great guy. Mine’s busy being an idiot.”</p>
<p>Grizz muttered that last part, but Sam still seemed to have caught it, because he cocked his head and thought for a moment, before guessing:</p>
<p>“Clark?”</p>
<p>“Jason, actually,” Grizz admitted. “In my defense, he was really cute when we were kids.”</p>
<p>“He’s cute now,” Sam said with a shrug. “A bonehead, but cute.”</p>
<p>“I guess. I got over it in like a month or two. There’s only so long you can build up a romantic fantasy about a guy before reality comes crashing in.”</p>
<p>Sam laughed.</p>
<p>“He was a good friend, though,” Grizz said. “Back then. I just… I don’t get it. How they could go so far off track. I mean, I know he and Clark are prone to bad decisions, but this is a really fucking bad decision. And Luke. That’s the part that really gets to me. I thought he was better than this. Not smarter, maybe, but better. He’s never wanted to hurt anyone. And now he’s lying to everyone. Got to be. Lying to Helena, even, from what it seems. Do you know how messed up that is? He worships the ground she walks on, always has. I keep thinking, if I can only find the right words, talk to them one on one, then we’ll sort it out somehow. Even Lexie. She’s got that look in her eyes like she’s stuck in a cage with no way of getting out. This can’t have been what she wanted. But it’s like everyone is terrified of stepping out of line, even the people upholding the damned line in the first place!”</p>
<p>He stopped, breathing heavily.</p>
<p>Sam watched him in silence. It occurred to Grizz that he had no idea how much of that Sam had even understood - he’d completely forgotten to pace his rant to lipreading speed.</p>
<p>“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to start up again.”</p>
<p>Sam nodded.</p>
<p>“I just don’t understand <em>why</em>.”</p>
<p>“I think you do,” Sam whispered.</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Grizz said with a sigh that seemed to take the air from his entire body. “I guess I do.”</p>
<p>“Campbell.”</p>
<p>“You warned us about him. We should have listened.” Grizz shook his head slowly. “Then again, I’m not sure what we could have done. We couldn’t kill him, we didn’t have enough on him for that. Maybe we still don’t. And even if we did… I couldn’t do it. I just can’t. Could you?”</p>
<p>Sam raised one shoulder in a helpless half-shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve never had to try.”</p>
<p>“I wish I could think of anything else but this stupid mess we’re in,” Grizz said, leaning back and rubbing at his eyes. “Just stop this endless hamster wheel of inner monologue.”</p>
<p>Sam kissed him.</p>
<p>As always, it was like electricity shooting through Grizz’s body. This desire to be <em>close</em>, to mold his entire body into the other boy’s and never let go. And his dick was reminding him that this was indeed an option. He pulled Sam closer,  breathing him in, feeling as much of him as possible with their clothes still on.</p>
<p>At long last, he broke off the kiss and got enough distance between him and Sam that he could say, “All right. That works. But we can’t kiss all the time.”</p>
<p>“Some of the time,” Sam said, playing with Grizz’s hair.</p>
<p>“Yes. Some of the time.”</p>
<p>“You know what else works?”</p>
<p>“What?”</p>
<p>“A baby.”</p>
<p>That wasn’t what Grizz had expected, and he blinked. “It does? I mean, she does?”</p>
<p>“Yeah. She exists here and now. Nothing else. And she pulls you in.”</p>
<p>“Sounds nice. I guess I should come and visit her, huh?”</p>
<p>Sam nodded. “And we can talk to Becca. Introduce you properly.”</p>
<p>“Oh, formal, is it?” Grizz teased. “Should I wear a tie?” It occurred to him that Becca, like Adrian, had a sign that meant her name. Campbell had none, apart from the C. As far as he knew, he didn’t have one of his own either. “Hey, can I have one of those nicknames? In sign?”</p>
<p>“Sure,” Sam said with a soft smile. He thought for a moment, and then put his hand up by his head, signing the letter G before forming his hand to a loose clutch at his head.</p>
<p>“Was that G bun?” Grizz asked. “Did you just name me G bun?”</p>
<p>“I did.”</p>
<p>“I can live with that, I guess. But what if I cut my hair?”</p>
<p>“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said. He tugged playfully at Grizz’s bun. “Too late now.”</p>
<p>“So I’m just stuck with it?”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Sam said with a cheeky grin. “Like any other name. No matter what, even if something happens to us, I’ll always be the one who named you.”</p>
<p>“Nothing’s going to happen to us,” Grizz said fiercely, wrapping his arm around Sam’s waist as if that would prevent the future from crashing in. “You know, I think it’s great. Forty years from now, when I’m old and bald, people will ask, why the G bun? And I’ll say, Sam gave me that name, and I love it.”</p>
<p>Sam nodded, his expression serious again. They both knew that there was no guarantee that they could survive as long as forty years.</p>
<p>Fuck that line of thinking. Grizz would <em>not</em> allow it.</p>
<p>“You know,” he said, “I think we should do some more kissing.”</p>
<p>Sam obliged.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>ShotOfPatron and I talked about whether or not Grizz already had a name sign on the show. As far as I can tell, both Sam and Becca fingerspell his name when they use it. But it should be noted that what little sign language I know is mostly Swedish, rather than American, and there's only so much you can pick up from comparing websites to screenshots. If I'm wrong, bear with me. :-)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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